Last chapter of this run, and then we'll be onto something new next week. Guess what? FIAG continues next Monday with a new installment. And a whooooole new problem for the Mighty One.

Enjoy!

+1: And One Time No One Worried At All

"How do things get so bad so fast?" Max wanted to know.

Virgil raised a feathery eyebrow. "Are you certain you want me to diagram a practical response to that inquiry?"

"No. Not really."

Beside them, Norman grunted. "At least we won't lose track of it."

Max turned his glare on his Guardian. "Thanks, Normie."

"Any time, Mighty One."

This time, they had not had to venture to a remote or not-so-remote part of the planet to avert the world-ending disaster; the problem had risen off the beach of Max's own hometown. It was a giant construction, big enough to put Fuath and Magnus to shame, apparently some kind of psychically-controlled golem constructed by "the first ancient peoples after Lemuria" according to Virgil.

"Well, they had lousy taste," Max had told him.

He stood by that assessment. The colossal, humanoid-shaped automaton was the exact color of rust when it has hits maximum exposure and starts to smell – and it lived up to that color with a scent that was almost visible in the air it was so potent. The thing didn't have so much a face as a gaping hole and a pair of glowing lights above it. It's fingerless hands were blunt mallets on the ends of the two arms with an extra elbow each, and it swung them like wrecking-balls into just about everything that wasn't immediately underfoot. Its feet were wide and conical in shape and left deep footprints wherever it moved.

But for all its intimidating form and size, the golem – or, rather, the person controlling it – had made two fatal mistakes.

First, it had not scooped up the Mighty One when it had the chance before Norman snatched the boy from it and carried him out of range.

Second, it had scooped up Max's mom, Bea, and Felix.

Max closed his eyes for a moment before opening them and focusing on the monstrous creation before him. In its belly, approximately, there was an open section with swirling holes that looked like a mandala carved into its midsection.

And through the holes, Max could make out his friends, his mom, and a few other unfortunate beach-goers who had been caught up in its initial landfall.

"You know what?" he asked.

"Yes, Mighty One?" Virgil looked at him.

Max broke into a feral, confident smile. "This thing's going down."

Beside him, Norman grinned with answering ferocity. "Now that's what I like to hear!"

Even Virgil's beak turned up in amusement. "As do I. Now, what is the plan?"

Max's smile deepened.

Meanwhile, too far away to hear, Max's mom, Bea, and Felix leaned against the bars of their prison staring down at their town on the edge of disaster.

"You'd think more people would run with a giant metal monster coming for them," Felix said, shrugging slightly.

"Makes you wonder how we ever evolved out of the trees if we didn't have the sense to run from a lion," Max's mom agreed, nodding. "Oh, for – look out down there!"

There was a squeal of brakes and the car that had been absurdly heading along the beach road in their direction stopped just short of the giant's feet. The red-faced, clearly oblivious driver barely dove clear before his car was squashed to pieces.

Bea let out an aggrieved sigh. "Well, there go his insurance rates."

Max's mother groaned. "And everybody else's. At this rate, you kids aren't going to be able to get car insurance any time soon."

"Who needs a car anyway when you've got Max's Cap?" Felix asked. "Plus, skateboarding is way more fun."

Bea looked at him, fighting a smile. "You're going to be the only fifty-year-old commuting to work on a skateboard, you know."

"I bet you a million bucks I won't."

"You don't even have ten bucks."

"Maybe when I'm fifty I'll have them!"

Max's mom cleared her throat. "Anyway. Is there something we should be doing other than waiting up here to be rescued like a set of damsels in distress?"

Bea took in the scene below and shook her head. "Nope."

"But couldn't we be helping Max?"

Bea pointed out and down. "The best help we can give Max right now…"

Felix caught what she saw and grinned, finishing her thought. "...Is staying totally out of his way!"

Below, Virgil was not so certain of the course of action his charge had chosen. "Mighty One, you have had better plans than this one. Plans that didn't work, might I remind you?"

"Yeah, but this one will."

"How can you be so confident?"

Max spared a moment to meet Virgil's eyes. Even after all this time and so much together, Virgil was still caught and held by the power of the Mighty One, the sheer force that shone in his eyes and said all would be well because he simply would not be defeated. Not now and not ever.

"I'm the Mighty One! And I say so!"

Norman grinned again. "Works for me!"

Max turned forward again, all his focus on his target.

"Besides," he said, preparing for the jump, "it's not like anybody's going to see this one coming."

Virgil sighed. "That, at least, is entirely true."

Max raised a hand. "On my signal."

Norman braced himself. "Ready, Mighty One."

Virgil tightened his own grip, not that it meant much against the Guardian's strength.

"Now!"

From above, Max's mother and friends watched as the familiar Cap-wearing shape, bound up in Norman's strong arms beside Virgil, leaped off a nearby building onto an enormous trampoline dragged out by the fire department before they realized they couldn't get to the people inside the golem. The cannon-ball of heroes shot forward at speed.

The impact on the colossus was so great the people within its abdomen felt the metal around them shake and ring. Then came the sound of clambering boots and a shouting Viking striking at the metal with his sword.

However, the prisoners could see that only two of the three had landed on the golem; Max had been let go by Norman mid-flight and had instead landed far below after catching himself on a flagpole to gain control of his momentum. While Norman crawled over the giant and started punching holes in its weak points as identified by Virgil who clung to his back, Max scrambled to the real source of trouble: the person controlling the golem in the first place.

Max had not been formally educated in any sort of hand-to-hand combat, but he had spent the last months training with Norman – and not just in how to duck, dodge, and stay out of the way.

Still, he needed little of Norman's training to get the upper hand on the woman wearing the strange crown that gave her command over the colossus. All he needed was her distraction while she yelled at the giant and tried to help it shake Norman off its head from her perch on top of a surfboard shop.

Sneaking up behind her and stealing the crown was downright anticlimactic, but it certainly did the job.

The woman shouted in rage and spun, but Max was already running away, crown tucked under one arm. He hit the edge of the low rooftop and dropped from it, falling and rolling with practiced ease. He sprinted ahead until he stood just between the golem's feet where it had frozen when its master lost control.

Max held up the crown. "You let everybody go right now! Nicely!"

The giant dropped to one knee and the swirly bars of its enclosure melted away. Norman slid down the thing's chest and helped hand people down to the sand. He placed the last prisoner safely on the ground before moving to block the woman who had finally caught up to Max and was running for him with fury in her eyes.

Max never even turned around – he knew he was safe with his Guardian and had absolutely no doubt that she would never reach him. Instead, he looked up at the golem.

"Hate to do this, buddy, but you're too dangerous to keep." He eyed Virgil. "How long would it take this thing to get to my favorite spot out in the deep blue sea?"

"Many hours of it running, Mighty One. It is over five thousand miles from here."

Max sighed. "I don't have that kind of time. And I definitely don't wanna have to babysit it after we get it there."

"If I may suggest an alternative?"

"Suggest away, Virg."

"There is a portal exactly fifty yards to your left that will lead to a deep crevasse between glaciers high in the Prince Charles Mountains of Antarctica. Even with climate change upon us, those glaciers should remain for some time, and I believe such temperatures should be sufficient to freeze this creation to harmlessness."

Max flipped him a smile. "Perfect!" He started moving left until the Cap came to life and the portal burst into existence.

"Okay, big, ugly, and inconvenient! Time for a really long nap!"

It had been a while since Max had tried this – and then he had been in another dimension and with another Chosen One to help him. But he had learned so much since then, and had found ever greater strength within himself.

Max raised a hand and willed the portal to grow.

While the colossus rose and took four small steps sideways, the portal expanded in the air until it was fully half the giant's height in diameter.

Max was sweating and shaking but he managed to hold onto his focus. "I think that's as good as it gets, dude. So get going!"

The golem ducked into the portal and let itself be carried away.

The very instant the portal snapped closed, Max dropped his hand and considered the stone crown that could undo all his hard work.

"Normie?" He looked up to see his Guardian approaching, the woman behind the attack tied up with some beach towels and being guarded by everyone from inside the giant stomach while the police swarmed them. "Would you mind?"

"Not at all, Mighty One." Norman took the crown from his boy's hands and easily snapped it in half.

"And what are you going to do with that, Mighty One?" Virgil asked, stepping close and putting a hand on Max's arm to steady him as well as to assuage his own concerns. But Max, though depleted and a little shaky, managed a familiar grin.

"Oh, I was thinking we break it up a few times and use whichever portals we didn't pick for the Crystal fragments to spread it around."

Virgil smiled too. "An excellent suggestion. And a job well done, Mighty One."

Max looked up at his mom and Bea and Felix finally getting away from the crowd and starting to head their way. He could read the pride in their faces, their pride on his behalf that never really left them no matter how much they tried to pretend it wasn't there. A similar pride to that exuded by Norman and Virgil, though theirs was keener still even though they, too, tried not to make it obvious to him.

But Max knew. How could he not know?

Even giant, should-have-been-long-dead golems couldn't break their trust in him. And couldn't break his trust in himself, come to that.

He knew they worried about him – his mom, his friends, and Virgil and Norman – and he worried, too, sometimes.

But days like this? Days where the evil was easy and the damage was minimal? Days where the worst harm to the world was a new cove cut by huge feet in the shoreline? Days when his destiny put him right where he needed to be to do his best work?

These were the days Mighty Max knew that, in the end, there was nothing to worry about.

Unless you were Skullmaster. Max felt certain he had plenty to worry about.

And that was exactly how it should be.